


Moving On

by JayceCarter



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Almost smut, F/M, Feels, Forced Prostitution, Healing, Talking, good communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 05:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14050143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: Nova and Gob discuss their future after Moriarty's death. They realize that killing the bad guy is sometimes only the start of the story, and that it takes a long time to move on.





	Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> This happens after the scene with these two in my story "Trapped." You don't need to read that to understand this. Summing that up, Charon killed Moriarty. The bar went to Gob and Nova stopped taking clients, helping him to run the bar instead. They are in a relationship, sort of, but haven't gone far. 
> 
> I may add more chapters of this at some point, but if I do, all chapters will be stand alone like this. These two are just very sweet and I loved them in Trapped but if I posted this there, I'd be killed for not updating with more Charon/Amy in that story, lol.

 

Gob had never thought of himself as a very lucky man, and that had continued in his life as a ghoul. Few things about being a slave could make a person feel lucky, especially when their life consisted of being a punching bag for Moriarty and customers alike, and watching the woman he loved forced to sleep with people she didn't want to sleep with.

 

No, his life hadn't been one people would watch with envy.

 

Things had changed, but he still hesitated to think of himself as lucky, maybe because he was still waiting for life to take it all away. Moriarty was gone, he was free, and he and Nova had a future.

 

Their past was a mass of pain and horror, but a future helped numb that sting. A future Nova seemed willing to give him, a future he didn't deserve.

 

His gaze stayed on her face, on those clever eyes that had always been smarter than he was. People always underestimated her, seeing just a whore, but she’d outlive them all. Moriarty had thought himself smart, but Nova had him beat. She always had, always a step ahead, always willing to do what she needed for her survival.

 

And his.

 

The time Moriarty had beat Gob so bad he couldn't walk lingered in his mind. His crime to deserve it? A customer had snuck out without paying when Gob was running an errand Moriarty had asked of him, while Moriarty was drunk on his own whiskey.

 

Nova had been the one to stop the beating, something Gob had been angry about at the time. Both because it risked her and because some of the time, when Moriarty when that far, when Gob was so close to done, he found himself lacking the energy to want to get up again.

 

Nova didn't take no for an answer, though. She'd leaned in close to Moriarty after putting herself between the two men and whispered into his ear.

 

She never told him what she said, but Moriarty's jaw had clenched, and he'd pulled away. He'd stopped.

 

Nova had helped Gob to his room and then took clients late into the night, well after Gob had passed out.

 

Maybe that was part of the deal? She'd agreed to make extra money for Moriarty in exchange for Gob's life.

 

Her fingers stroked over his cheek, pulling him back to the moment. " I thought you were taking me to bed."

 

He turned his face in to kiss her palm. It tasted of the cleaning solution they used on the tables, burning his tongue a bit, but he didn't care. "Do you know what scares me?"

 

"What?"

 

"That at some point, you'll look at me like you do him. I know you slept with Moriarty." He caught her wrist when she tried to pull away. "I'm not judging you about it. I just, I'm afraid you'll look back on this, and you'll think of me like you think of him. That I'm using you like he did. That you'll never really want me, and that perhaps, you never really can."

 

Nova's shoulders dropped, but she didn't pull her hand from his. "I've never thought of you like him. He was a bastard who used me, and you've never done that."

 

"You think that now, but will you always?"

 

Nova pulled her hand from his grip, and he expected her to storm out. He was pushing too hard, being unfair.

 

He wasn't her keeper; she didn't owe him explanations. Worse, he was telling her she couldn't make her own choices. No matter how much he knew that made him like Moriarty, like every man who had paid for her and thought they owned her, he couldn't touch her, couldn't sleep with her unless he was sure she wanted him.

 

It mattered. It mattered more than his pride, more than his desire to have her. He needed her to be okay more than he needed anything else in his life.

 

Instead of pulling away, Nova slid her hands behind his head and laced them together. She didn't pull him down for a kiss, just stared up into his eyes.

 

She was shorter than he was. He slouched so much, it was hard to remember.

 

"I've wanted you for a long time, Gob. Maybe you're right, maybe we don't need to have sex, maybe I rush to that because I understand it, but I know I need you. I think about where I would be, what my life would be like if I didn't have you. Not just now, either. Before, with Moriarty, I don't think I'd have survived that first night let alone the years since if I hadn't had you. You made this a home, a family. Nothing else mattered but waking up and seeing your face."

 

He wrapped an arm around her to pull her closer, her warm, bare skin against his arm, against his shirt.

 

"When I woke up and didn't think I could do this again, after I wished off the smell of men, washed away what they left on me, in me, it was only you that made me think I could keep going."

 

The adoration on her face hurt. It scratched his skin like road rash. "I should have stopped it. I should have done something."

 

"If you'd done anything, he'd have killed you, and I'd have been alone."

 

"Charon did something." Gob tore his gaze away, focusing on the cracking floorboards instead. He’d inherited this all, and yet sometimes he wondered if it would all crumble beneath his feet. "He would have never let it happen as long as it did. You deserve better."

 

Nova went to her toes, her lips pressing against his jaw. He hated when she kissed him. The wrongness of it swam in his head. She was perfect; she shouldn't have been anywhere near his radiation burns, nowhere near the areas of his skin that still burst open and oozed from time to time.

 

"If I wanted Charon or someone like him, don't you think I would be with them? It's not like I haven't had my share of men offer to off Moriarty and take me away from here. You think Jericho hasn't offered?"

 

"So why didn't you? It would have gotten you out of this in a way I couldn't. At least you've have been safe."

 

Nova used the grip she still had on the back of his head to force him to look at her again. "Because I didn't want them. And if you had done that, you wouldn't have been the man I fell for, either. I've had enough violence in my life, Gob. I've had my share of men willing to kill for anything. For once, I want peace. I want softness. I think I deserve that."

 

Gob gave into the gentle tug of her hands to lean down. She not only deserved whatever she wanted, but he was determined to give whatever it was to her.

 

His lips brushed hers, more of the same gentle kisses he'd offered in the time since Moriarty's departure. He let his hand go to the side of her neck, tipping her head back to deepen the kiss. She gave, and he took, the natural way of things in his opinion.

 

It had to be her way. She'd spent years having sex for others, doing what they wanted, being what they wanted. He’d watched her dress, watch her language change, watch her turn into whoever it was they were buying for the night. So many masks, none of them her. He could never have her do that again.

 

Besides, it wasn't as if he'd had much experience himself. Not a virgin, there weren't any virgins at his age, but between his passive nature, his turning ghoul, and his enslavement, he'd had little practice.

 

Nova pulled him toward the bed, walking herself backward until she could get him onto the bed with her.

 

She seemed so much smaller like that, tucked beneath him, but her lips moved with certainty.

 

When she broke the kiss, he pulled in an unsteady and unmanly breath. So much for seeming comfortable.

 

Her smile eased his worries. "So, what do you like?"

 

"Like?"

 

Her hand drifted down his front to tuck the fingers around his belt. "Yeah, in bed. I can do anything, nothing bothers me, not anymore. What do you want?"

 

Gob sighed, the words so similar to what had just run through his head. He pressed his lips to her jaw, whispering between the kisses. "It amazes me that you need to ask. What do I want? I want you happy, Nova. I want you doing and having everything you want. I want you letting go of who you think others want you to be to be and just being you." He sucked softly on a spot over her pulse but released the suction before a bruise could form. "What do I want? I want you, the real you, and I don't care if it takes me years to get there."

 

Nova's fingers paused, still dipped into the front of his pants, skin against his lower stomach. She gazed down, then inched her eyebrows together like she hadn't realized what she was doing. Her hand pulled back, fingers dragging against his skin as she withdrew them.

 

She didn't pull away, though. The hand slid around him to his back, fingers curled in so she gripped him closer. "I don't think I know what I want anymore. I haven't thought about it. It hasn't mattered to anyone in a long time."

 

The words broke Gob, whatever part of hadn't been broken by the years. The whispered words, soft and full of shame.

 

Gob pressed his forehead against hers. "It matters to me, Nova. It will always matter to me. And if you don't know yet? That's okay." He let his lips brush hers in an almost kiss. "We'll figure it out together."

 

Her lips shift beneath his, pulling up into a smile. "Well, I think the only thing I know for sure is that I want you."

 

"Then we are off to a good start."

 

And for the first time in his life, Gob felt lucky.


End file.
